Treatment cheer for govt employees

Retired government employees would shortly be able to avail of various types of free and subsidised treatment at state medical college and hospitals, district hospitals and primary health centres.

The health department would spend around Rs 100 crore initially for implementation of the plan. The budget would later be increased to Rs 200 crore.

Health officials claimed that the department had already started working out the modalities.

“According to the plan, retired government employees, whether they are Class IV employees or Class I officer, would be able to avail of various types of treatment free of cost and at subsidised rates at government hospitals. The cabinet has recently approved funds for this purpose. We are going to invest around Rs 100 crore on this in the first phase. At present, there are around 4 lakh pensioners in the state,” said Anil Kumar, deputy secretary, health, at a news conference organised by the health department on Monday.

The deputy health secretary said the pensioners would hopefully be able to take benefits of the plan from October.

Rajnish Kumar Singh, administrative officer, State Health Society, Bihar, talked about the achievements of the department in its immunisation programme on the occasion.

“In the financial year 2012-13, the percentage of routine immunisation in the state was 67, while in 2013-14, the percentage of routine immunisation increased by six per cent according to the World Health Organisation report. We have set the target of covering around 32 lakh pregnant women and 29 lakh infants in our routine immunisation programme. The reason of the declining rate of infant mortality and polio cases could be attributed to our successful immunisation programme.”

The administrative officer added: “Regular immunisation can help prevent eight different types of diseases, including polio, tuberculosis, Hepatitis B and Japanese encephalitis, among others. The Hepatitis B vaccine, first made available in government hospitals in 2011, is still available. At present, the vaccine for Japanese encephalitis is being given in the government hospitals of 22 districts, including Nalanda, Buxar, Bhojpur and Arwal, among others. To achieve cent per cent results in the immunisation programme, we are carrying it out in district hospitals and primary health centres on a daily basis, while immunisation is being carried out in Anganwadi centres on the first Wednesday of every month.”